The Lifeguard

by   July 28, 2019 with No Comments

The Lifeguard

Salisbury Post- July 27, 2019 – By Ann Farabee

While perched comfortably in my beach chair, surrounded by all the stuff you carry to the beach with you, I was watching my two children play in the waves. Although still young, they were old enough to give me the freedom of watching their every move like a hawk from my chair, instead of being in the water with them.

Watching intently and staying focused on them only, I realized they were now oblivious to me, as they waited on the next wave to break.

Ride a wave. Go back out. Ride a wave. Go back out. They were quite entertained, and unaware that they were continually drifting further and further down the shore. But I knew.

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Each time they ran up on the sandy beach, I waved my arms to let them know I was still there, but they never looked my direction.

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Even though I did not have their attention, they sure had mine. I kept my eyes totally on them – because I knew there were things they needed to watch out for:

*The undercurrent – An undercurrent is water that is below the surface that moves in a different direction from the current. The powerful channels of water can pull swimmers out, knock them down, or push them to a place they never intended to be.

*The underwater – Anyone who has spent time in the ocean has probably felt something swish by their legs, leaving them with a question, “What is in the water with me?” Hmm? Maybe fish, sharks, debris, trash, broken seashells, seaweed, jellyfish, assorted marine life? There are things we cannot see – and we need to stay alert.

*The underestimated – And how about those things we just do not think about? Like how the shallow water could quickly become areas of deep water. How the sunny day could bring about a painful sunburned evening. How the cloud coverage that cooled things off could become a dangerous storm that created damage. How the wave coming toward you that looked like ‘a good one’ could bring you to your knees.

No, my children were not watching out for those things – but I was watching out for them – because I was their lifeguard.

What is a lifeguard? It is one who guards your life.

Even though this was years ago, I remember vividly the look on their faces as they finished riding the waves, burst out of the water, and ran with ‘shore faith’ that I was there waiting in the beach chair for them.…and then realizing they were not seeing the one they were looking for – me- their lifeguard.

They had drifted far from where I was – and far from where they needed to be. But, even though they were not seeing me, I had not taken my eyes off them.

Nor will I forget the relief on their faces as they looked around for me – and saw me coming toward them, waving my hands in the air, and calling out their names.

The first question they asked when we reunited, “How did we get so far away from where we were?”

Good question, kids. Good question. I have had to ask myself that often.

  • 6000 waves break at any given shore per day – Our Lord sees them all.
  • 2 Chronicles 16:9 says that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.
  • Aren’t you glad to have the Lord as your life guard?

Getting a Harvest

by   July 26, 2019 with No Comments

Getting a Harvest – By Doug Creamer

            How are your weeds growing…I mean, how is your garden doing? My garden is doing better this year than last. We are getting a harvest and enjoying it. We have gotten some tomatoes, unlike last year when we only got a few. The squash is doing well. We have also enjoyed the blueberries and raspberries this year.

            Early in the season, I was working hard to try and keep the weeds down. Things were coming along well and then we hit the hot spell, and I don’t like being out in high heat and humidity. Then being away at the beach gave the weeds an extra boost. So overall, we have a healthy crop of weeds this year. Too bad there isn’t such a thing as weed soup.

            I’ve also been fighting the deer again. They really like my string beans, but they will eat the butterbeans, too. I have replanted several times this year. My mom gave me a plastic fence that I put around them and I think we might get some beans after all.

            We’ve also been fighting some yellow bug which is eating the squash leaves, and we’re fighting diseases, as well. The cucumbers have been producing nicely, but something has gotten a hold of them and the vines are dying. The tomatoes have gotten some yellow leaves, and that has hurt us, too.

            The weather forecast is calling for a cooler week. It’s supposed to rain on Tuesday for most of the day, but then give us some nice weather for the end of the week. I hope that is right so I can get out there and work on the weeds, and maybe dig my potatoes. The potatoes have lived much longer than usual, which I hope implies a big harvest. I know there is plenty more heat and humidity to come, but a nice break would be great to catch up out in the garden.

            I am eagerly awaiting the c-o-r-n; I don’t want to say the word lest the deer and raccoons hear me and plan a party out back. The rain this week might be perfectly timed to give me some big full ears of c-o-r-n. I am hoping to enjoy that in the next couple of weeks.

            If you want to grow a good garden, flowers or vegetables, it takes time and effort. The same thing applies to our spiritual lives. No one becomes a strong Christian in a few days. It takes time to break up the crusty soil of our lives. There needs to be a good place for the Word of God to take root in us.

            That means that we have to pick up the Word of God and read it so it will fertilize the new growth in our lives. Naturally, prayer will water our new garden so the seeds will have the best chance to grow. We can’t grow in God if we never talk with Him. We have to spend some time with the Son.

            We begin our spiritual lives with faith, then we add the Word of God and prayer, but we can’t stop there. We have to add goodness. Being good is a choice; it’s like the food we eat. There are so many things to eat; some are good for our bodies, while others can harm us. God wants us to choose goodness. That implies that we have to exercise some self-control. It is extremely hard to have self-control during the holiday season when there is so much delicious food around. God expects us to work on self-control through our temptations.

            It seems that once we start to make the right choices, trials come our way. We have to persevere through those tough times. God is with us. If we take on His character, we will make it through. One thing that can help is being in fellowship with other believers. Your brothers and sisters can help you when times are tough, and you can help them, too. Sometimes the simplest gestures on our part can show the love and kindness of God.

            I want to encourage you to let your roots grow deep in the soil of God’s love. When you allow your roots to draw in the Spirit of God, you will grow strong and produce a heavenly crop. We can’t do it alone. We need each other, God’s Word, and the desire to work in the soil of our lives, so we can produce a harvest for God. No one is perfect, we all have weeds in our lives, but that shouldn’t keep us from being fruitful for God.

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com

Not in a Flatbed Ford

by   July 25, 2019 with No Comments

By Lynna Clark

My friend Ann picked me up in the Red Rocket. She’s a sturdy ol’ gal. I’m speaking of the 1995 convertible. Bless her heart. She’s got a lot of miles on her but she’s still so much fun.

We tooled down the road toward another friend’s new home out in the country. When we realized we were on Old Concord instead of Faith Road, my driver whipped the car around in the road. The Red Rocket was now pointed in the opposite direction.

Soon we came to a four way stop. Remembering the wisdom of Kent Bernhardt, Ann prepared the universal sign of displeasure while I locked eyes with the man to our right. Of course we’d arrived at exactly the same time. Technically he had the right of way. But something Kent forgot to include in his instruction is the Southern Gentleman Factor. The nice man politely nodded in our direction.

“Punch it Margaret!” I directed my driver. She did so never having to deploy the recommended sign. For that I was thankful. Since we didn’t have the top down and my current medication gives me terrible power surges, suddenly I was hot: and not in a good way.

Dang hormone therapy.

Okay… so it’s old age and my glasses fogged up. I sipped the ever present Gingerale I carry due to my “condition.”

“Can I have some air?” I asked as I fiddled with the buttons on the dashboard.

She stuck her finger in a hole and tried to turn the missing non-knob. I’m just glad the hole she tried was not a cigarette lighter or her glasses might have fogged up too. Anyway, after a bit we decided to roll the windows down. Apparently the Red Rocket is not used to such hot women.

It felt good to visit our friend who is building her new house. Ann and I yacked like a couple old hens all the way there and back. She confessed that she just found out she has a cataract. Silently I thanked God that when things get foggy for me I can still take my glasses off.

“There’s Brandon!” I pointed at a truck sitting at a stop sign. Once again Ann whipped the Red Rocket around in a very questionable U-turn. She is related to my son-in-law and wanted to catch up. “Call him!” she directed.

“Uh… he’s a plumber. I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk to his mother-in-law in the middle of a busy work day.”

Ann continued to follow the black truck with the big silver tool box making at least six turns behind him into a new development. Before I knew it we were parked beside of him with our windows down. I looked at the man who was now blocked in his truck by the Red Rocket.

“OH! Sorry…” I mumbled.

He wasn’t Brandon.

“Punch it Margaret!” I instructed my getaway driver. She did so and we found ourselves at a muddy dead end with very little space to turn around. That small fact did not deter my friend. With the skill of a NASCAR driver she eased between construction vehicles and somehow pointed us once again in the correct direction. A few moments later we rode past the stranger in the black pickup with the silver tool box… again. He looked at us rather oddly.

I can’t imagine why.

I just hope the story he tells his wife includes something about two hot chicks in a red convertible that chased him down. Though we were not in a flatbed Ford, perhaps he will envision himself on a corner in Winslow Arizona. If I were him, I’d leave out the part where neither old lady could see past her nose.

Yep, we’ve got a lot of miles on us. Thank God we still know how to have fun.

Hungry

by   July 19, 2019 with No Comments

I took my own advice from last week’s column. If you missed it, in last week’s column I talked about how to enter a new chapter in your life. Change comes to all our lives in various ways. I offered a few thoughts about how to walk through those changes.

One of my pieces of advice was to rest. When we face change in our lives, we often find ourselves burning the candle at both ends. We are running here, going there. How can we effectively and efficiently make the new changes if we are worn out? If we can rest before the change, that’s great. But I believe that many times we need some time to rest after a major change in our lives.
Think about it. We take honeymoons as newlyweds. Mothers and sometimes fathers are given some time off after the birth of a child. We also take time off work when we lose a loved one. We need time to deal with the change in our lives.

So I disconnected last week and allowed myself to rest. I gave myself permission to rest. It’s hard to give ourselves permission because there is so much that needs to get done. I got some extra rest. I discovered something by the end of the week. The smoldering coals in my life had been gathered together. Then I felt God breath on them. The coals came back to life. There was a little flame. It wasn’t a roaring fire, just a little flame of renewed life.

When I felt this little awakening happening within me, I discovered something else. I was hungry. You know how you feel when you first wake up. I was hungry for the Word of God and the presence of God. Although I had been maintaining my quiet time daily, there was a deeper hunger for more.

I have plenty of Boy Scout experience with a campfire. If you can find some smoldering wood, you ought to be able to coax it a little and get the fire going again. You have to gather all the warmest embers together and then you blow very gently on them. If you do it right, they should begin to glow. As the heat gathers around the embers and you continue to gently blow, there will be small flame that develops.

You have to be ready for this moment. You have to have some dry kindling ready to add slowly as you get the first flames. The little kindling catches fire easily, and if you are patient and keep the kindling coming you can slowly add bigger pieces. It takes a little while, but if you are patient you will soon have a roaring fire going once again.

I believe it works the same way with our body, mind, and spirit. We keep pushing ourselves through the big changes in our lives. Our bodies can put up with some abuse for a period of time, but then we have to give ourselves a chance to rest. We need the opportunity to recuperate and become refreshed.

Reading a good book, watching a movie, or going for a long walk are all things that allow me to rebuild and feel renewed. Each of us does that process differently, but we all know ourselves and what helps us find the place of renewal. We have to get the embers started and allow Him to breath on us.

I felt the fire beginning to stir and made a mistake. I started to push myself again. I forgot my Boy Scout training. Rekindling is a slow process. I want to get moving, but God isn’t finished helping me rest. I want to get some deeper insights from heaven, but He wants me to be still and know that He is God. He wants me to be filled again with His love. I need to let His Spirit envelop me, to hold me close and renew me.

I want to encourage you to stir up a hunger in your spirit for more of God. It’s hard, but sometimes we need to slow down and rest in His arms. His plan is for seasons of rest, to allow His Spirit to refresh us. He does have good plans for our future, but they include resting and getting ready for what He has planned. We aren’t missing something by slowing down, we are getting something. I know it’s hard to rest, but it’s important to be obedient. We need to let God refresh us so we can fulfill His purposes in our generation.

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com

Breakfast by the Sea

by   July 18, 2019 with No Comments

By Lynna Clark

What’s your default setting? Where do you go when nothing makes sense? Do you have a happy place that re-boots your psyche? Christianese would say, “Run to Jesus.” So how do you do that when the bills pile up, the pain is great and prayers seem to go unanswered?

A good friend of mine who struggles with depression will watch a funny movie. Another friend finds great solace in his deer stand. He can sit in the forest on a cold, frosty morning for hours. David will take a long ride on his motorcycle through the quiet countryside. He calls it therapy. Me? Take me to the beach. Give me a day watching the waves and suddenly I’m good for another couple months.

The sweetest story is recorded in the last chapter of John. Seven guys were together after witnessing the horrible death of their friend. Even though they had seen Him alive, and realized that God had raised Him from the dead, their future was very uncertain. Unmet expectations, fear of the unknown and the lingering question of “What now?” made way for hurt and doubt.

Peter reveals his default setting with “I’m going fishing.”

His friends joined him. But after fishing all night their nets were as empty as their souls. With dawn breaking a stranger called out to them the ageless question.

“Catching anything?”

“We’ve got nothing,” was their reply.

“Throw your nets on the other side,” came the familiar suggestion.

With nets suddenly full, memories of provision and care filled their weary souls. Once they hauled in the bounty, they made their way to the shore where Jesus was waiting. There He had a hot breakfast ready for them. Can He get any sweeter?

Here is the Lord of glory, Who has just conquered death, Who understands their fear and emptiness, cooking breakfast on the sea shore for His weary friends.

He’s kind like that. It wasn’t enough to call out a greeting; or to fill their boat with fish; or even just appear to them again in order to let them know everything would be okay. Nope. He cooked breakfast.

That is a picture of our Savior: Grace heaped upon grace.

Just when we cannot take another thing, He sends what we need to fill our empty souls.

Hold on my friend. He will be calling to you shortly. Don’t feel bad if you have to look to Him and reply, “I’ve got nothing.” He already knows. He’s cooking up something special that will be just what you need.

Things I Will Never See

by   July 14, 2019 with No Comments

Things I Will Never See

Salisbury Post- July 13, 2019 – By Ann Farabee

It was the trip of a lifetime. Early July. Freezing temperatures. Four layers of clothing. An aerial tram to the top of the mountain. And we had arrived – the most beautiful place ever!

Mt. Alyeska, Alaska. Breathtaking. I could not stop staring. The green was the greenest green I had ever seen. The waterway, Turnagain Arm, was the bluest blue, greenest green, and clear like crystal, all at the same time. Identifying where the snow peaked mountaintops stopped and clouds started was next to impossible to discern.

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There were others on the mountaintop with us, but the silence was deafening as we all became immersed in the beauty around us. Each one of us had ridden the tram up the mountain that morning – and all seemed to be impacted in the same way – overcome by it – sensing that only God could have created something of such beauty.

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I had been transplanted right into the middle of a place of serene beauty that I did not want to leave – and could not walk away from. What a feeling! I have always believed God can speak to us through nature – and that moment proved it.

I continued to stand there frozen – literally and figuratively. I remember thinking, “I do not want to leave here. This is one of those things I will never see again.”

Had I never been on Mt. Alyeska, I could not have felt it as deeply, or understood its beauty, because I would not have seen it. But once I saw it…the beauty of it stayed with me.

Things I will never see. That thought on the mountaintop stayed with me, and eventually formed into a question with some answers from God’s Word:

Things I Will Never See?

I will never see:

*Love fail – 1 Corinthians 13:8

*The righteous forsaken – Psalm 37:25

*My need not met – Philippians 4:19

*My call not answered – Jeremiah 33:3

*My sins remembered – Hebrews 10:17

*A lack of grace – Hebrews 4:16

*Death – John 8:51

Had I never been on mountaintop experiences in life with my Jesus, I could never have felt as deeply the power of these promises of things I will never see. I could never have understood the beauty of the promises of these things I will never see. Once I saw it – the things I would never see – the beauty of them stayed with me.

It is such a beautiful place to be – I never want to leave. What a feeling!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that He has made everything beautiful in his time: he has set eternity in our hearts.

1 Corinthians 13:12 says that for now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then will I know even as also I am known.

We only have a glimpse of the beauty and joy that eternity will bring when we meet our Savior face to face. We may not have answers to all our questions, but we can be thankful for those things we will one day see – and for the things we will never see.

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